


dust off your highest hopes

by hippolytas



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, otherwise known as the destruction makeout au, short story: destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27884083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippolytas/pseuds/hippolytas
Summary: They began the careful steps, with Attolia minding her feet and Eugenides mirroring her easily.“Oh, your father did not appreciate that move with the winecup,” Attolia said, noticing the minister’s stare as she spun around, slowly for the first turn.“That’s his normal expression. No doubt he thinks it would teach me a fine lesson about thieving if I poisoned myself from a stolen cup.”*Attolia and Eugenides do more than stare at each other during Destruction. AU.
Relationships: Attolia | Irene/Eugenides
Comments: 17
Kudos: 47





	dust off your highest hopes

**Author's Note:**

> So a few months ago we were joking about Attolia and Eugenides staring at each other throughout Destruction and how Gen would have ditched his own party to make out with her in a hot second and this is that fic! Big thanks to [Storieswelove](/users/Storieswelove/) for betaing and leaving the nicest comments and for being the greatest cheerleader for this fic and its premise

After Eddis had her victory there was a feast, with roast lamb and stuffed vegetables and the many cheeses that the country was known for, drizzled in honey and fresh fruit. Afterwards, the guests stayed in the large throne room Eddis used as her banquet hall as servants cleared the tables to make room for music and dancing.

Attolia observed the shifting of the room, reflecting on the day. She had a lingering and uncomfortable feeling that Eddis had done the right thing. If the Gift could be given to anyone, it might have become a threat to Eddis’s throne in the future. And if Eddis’s barons had thrown her over for a king, it would have emboldened Attolia’s barons to make another attempt at the same.

She even allowed herself to feel a little sorry for Eddis when protocol dictated that the other queen dance the first set with Sounis, the highest ranking male guest. Attolia herself was partnered with Eddis’s Prime Minister and they exchanged diplomatic niceties. When the set was over, she danced with the representative from Ferria, who had some connection with the university there and spoke effusively about the ceremonial aspects of the day. Attolia noticed that Eddis’s Thief did not dance. He lounged against a wall, watching the other dancers, as his countrymen and women seemed to pass him over in their search for partners.

Perhaps his cousin would dance with him, Attolia thought as she courtesied to the Ferrian and turned to accept the invitation of the dignitary from Melenze. From what she had seen today, Eddis seemed to be as fond of her Thief as he was of her. Eugenides’s cutting rejection of Attolia when she had captured him and his companions still pricked at her, though she could acknowledge that it was the truth in his words that had made them such an effective barb.

“—Your Majesty, I beg your—I did not mean—my humblest apologies.” Attolia was startled from her thoughts by the Melenzian trodding on her foot. He was a clumsy dancer, and she had been too distracted to avoid the misstep. Irritated now, she waved off his apologies and corrected their positioning where they had fallen out of step. 

Later in the set, as the dancers neared the places they had started from, she saw that the Thief still stood alone, watching everyone else whirl about. In the soft glow of the chandelier that illuminated the room, his clothes looked more blue than black and the gold details seemed to glow against his skin. She saw that his boots were tapping against the floor, slightly out of time with the drums. His eyes roamed the room, looking, it seemed, everywhere but her. Attolia wondered if he wanted to dance and if he was unhappy to be left out. It might be a number of sets before Eddis got low enough in the order of precedence of her guests to dance with him. When the dance was over, Attolia stepped away from the pairs and summoned a servant for wine. 

He didn’t look at her until she was standing right in front of him. When his gaze finally lifted, it was slowly, like he might be reluctant to see her face, and Attolia wondered if he was afraid of her. When Eugenides met her eyes though, she thought she must have been wrong. There was no reluctance and certainly no fear, only that quick engaging smile and in his eyes, a strange light.

“Good evening, Your Majesty.” He bowed politely.

“Hello, Eugenides. You are looking better than the last time I saw you.” Attolia meant it. There was the obvious difference in clothes and cleanliness and the small matter of no longer being on the verge of death, but his skin was a rich healthy color instead of prison-sallow and he had benefited from a return to regular meals.

The corner of his mouth twitched and the Thief gave a half shrug, almost self-effacing. 

She guessed at his meaning. “Not, perhaps, the most difficult of achievements,” she said. 

“I was not at my best, Your Majesty,” he agreed. “You, however, are more stunning every time I see you,” he added, grinning with a boyish sincerity.

Attolia received the compliment warily, wondering whether he meant that she had become more beautiful, or more cruel. Eugenides’s smile dimmed. 

“I noticed you watching me earlier,” he said, nearly tripping over the words as they rushed from his mouth. Attolia frowned and was going to deny it when he continued. “Wishing you’d hung me from your walls when you’d had a chance?”

She felt her expression turn to stone. It didn’t matter what this boy thought of her, or his cousin, or anyone else for that matter. Attolia was not in the habit of engaging in gratuitous violence for the sake of it. “I wasn’t going to kill you.”

“No?” He did not believe her. Eugenides was young. He knew only Eddis and her barons who would follow her into hell and who had never once raised an army against her. 

“I execute traitors, not half-dead, thieving goatfoots.” She took another sip of her wine. “Especially not if they are foreign trespassers who happen to be of great value to their monarchs. You all would have been ransomed fairly.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You knew about Sophos?”

“Your other companion was in my pay,” she reminded him. “And even if he hadn’t been, the first thing Sounis’s magus did when we spoke was ensure that I knew about Sophos.” It astounded her that the magus had retained his position after putting Sounis’s heir in such precarious circumstances. Attolia would not have accepted such recklessness and failure in an advisor.

Eugenides’s eyes darted to where the heir in question was speaking enthusiastically to the Ferrian diplomat. She realized with a start that Eugenides hadn’t known the boy was the heir. He had feared for his friend’s life and thrown his own into grave danger to save him. Foolish, but brave.

“You yourself may not have lived long enough to be ransomed,” she admitted. “My physician could hardly believe you made it to the megaron. Eddis might have been paying me for a very expensive corpse.”

A startled huff escaped his mouth and then grew to a true laugh and Attolia allowed herself a cautious smile. “Yet here I am.” He made a mocking half-bow. “It doesn’t speak highly of your guards that they let a half-dead goatfoot escape your fortress.”

She bristled. “You ‘escaped’ an unlocked room,” she reminded him. “You left sound medical treatment to climb up a mountain in the dark. I was once told a thief’s greatest asset was his mind.”

“You sound like Galen,” he grumbled, though his smile lingered in his eyes. “And my father.”

Galen, she remembered after a moment, was the Eddisian court physician. Attolia was certain no one else had ever thought of her as a nagging nurse or concerned parent and she was so taken aback at the comparison that she didn’t respond. In the ensuing beat of silence, the opening pipe notes of the next dance began to play. 

Eugenides’s eyes slid over her face and then away and he picked at some imperceptible flaw in his coat. “Do you know any of the Eddisian dances, Your Majesty? They’re a bit more challenging then the fancy walking you import from the continent.”

Attolia raised an eyebrow at him, considering. “Is that a rude way of asking me to dance?”

Eugenides flushed and Attolia looked to the winecup she held, still partly full. 

“Allow me,” he said. Distracted by his hand on her wrist, she didn’t realize he had eased her winecup from her grip until he raised it to his mouth and tossed back the last sips. He handed the empty cup off to a passing servant and bowed. 

Pressing her lips together, she took his offered arm and allowed him to lead her to the floor. Attolia waited until she had control of herself again before she risked speaking. “That was a foolish thing to do.” No one had dared to drink from her winecup since the night of her wedding.

“But it was funny. Look how shocked they all are.” Indeed, the Eddisians nearby had begun to stare openly. “Didn’t you think so?”

She declined to encourage him as they came under further attention from his court. “You  _ did _ ,” he said, voice jumping, a little delighted. He was a very strange boy.

They took their positions, joining hands and crossing them. He was several inches shorter than she was and Attolia wondered if they were in danger of making fools of themselves. There was a great deal of spinning in this dance but Eugenides did not seem worried, the set of his shoulders relaxed as he tilted his head up to meet her eyes. 

They began the careful steps, with Attolia minding her feet and Eugenides mirroring her easily.

“Oh, your father did not appreciate that move with the winecup,” Attolia said, noticing the minister’s stare as she spun around, slowly for the first turn.

“That’s his normal expression. No doubt he thinks it would teach me a fine lesson about thieving if I poisoned myself from a stolen cup.”

Attolia sincerely doubted that.

Eugenides passed her back to his other hand and she was forced to step very close so that she could glide under his arm without ducking. She could feel the heat emanating from him and her own cheeks grew very warm. They moved together for the spin that would end the cycle and she hesitated to lean with her greater height and weight, but Eugenides held fast to her.

More sure of the pattern now, Attolia saw that it was not just the Minister of War who was staring. She stiffened as she realized that many of the Eddisians seemed to be watching them.

Eugenides noticed the change. “They are staring at me, not you,” he said, not bothering to lower his voice. As he spun her he made an extra flourish.

“It is unusual for you to dance?” she asked, remembering how they had passed him over earlier.

“Oh, the Thief is never a popular partner,” he said dismissively.

“I know why,” she murmured, and saw him wince. Gathering her skirts as she turned with her back to him, she hiked them up to show her slippers as she danced in a circle around him, aware of his eyes on her even as he kept his position. The fabric rustled around her ankles and whispered at his boots when they clasped hands again and spun close.

The dance was much faster now but Irene and Eugenides kept pace easily, spinning in and out of each other’s arms as if they had done it hundreds of times. She felt the thrill of her heart beating faster and faster and whirled into it. The only things that existed were the swing of her skirts and the pattern of her feet and the warm weight of his hand in hers. 

When the music was so fast that the pipes were only a trill, they held tightly for one last spin, not breaking until the music released them. Attolia couldn’t recall the last time she had enjoyed herself so well. Eugenides was smiling broadly at her too, cheeks flushed and expression transparently pleased and she noticed again how engaging it was. When she offered a small smile in return, he dropped his gaze and looked away from her. 

Feeling caught out at something, though she wasn’t sure what, she looked away as well. They were both out of breath and Attolia suddenly felt overheated in her velvet gown.

“I...need some air,” she said, realizing that Eugenides was still holding her hand. 

He was looking at his toes. “Would you like—there are the roof walks nearby, Your Majesty.”

Perhaps it was the heat of the room or the lingering dizziness from the speed of the dance, but her heart was beating so rapidly that it seemed moments away from leaping out of her chest entirely. If she was in danger of becoming faint, she would rather do it in the quiet night air than while dancing with Sounis. “Very well,” said Attolia, signaling to her guard. Teleus sent a pair of his men to speak to the Eddisians.

It was a crisp night and the chill made her feel a little more like herself. They strolled the length of the walkway as Eugenides, who was suddenly talking rather a lot, pointed out various architectural features of the palace. She asked him about the gryphons and he explained that they had been part of Eddis’s heraldry since long before the time of the invaders and showed her how the designs had changed throughout the ages. His explanations were edged with a sharp humor that Attolia enjoyed and she found herself asking more questions.

The Eddisians obviously spent a great deal of time up on their walkways and candles and torches lit the whole length of the roof. There were colored tiles inlaid into the stone and gargantuan potted trees, olives and laurels and many kinds of fruits. They would all need to be wrapped in cloth soon and perhaps even taken to a hothouse to protect against the winter, but for now they were in their harvest and the olives and fruits hung heavy on the bough. The guards Teleus had sent ahead had cleared the walkway and Teleus himself had dropped back when Attolia had begun to feel more steady. Everything was still apart from the two of them. 

As they continued to walk, Attolia found herself thinking less about Eddisian architecture. Eugenides’s arm was a warm weight tucked in hers and when she glanced down at his face, she could see the dark sweep of his lashes against his cheek. They paused, looking out over the crenellated wall so that he could point out something about the Sacred Mountain and she caught the scent of something heavy and sweet.

“The quince trees,” Eugenides said, seeing her turn and look for the source. He gestured at the fruit trees on either side of them. “Do you want one?”

Attolia looked at him, wondering if it was ignorance or meanspiritedness that drove him. Quinces might smell sweet, but they could not be eaten raw. In Attolia, people boiled them with honey and ate them, or made jams and sauces from the flesh.

“It’s not a trick,” Eugenides assured her, as if he had read her mind. “They’re sweet, I promise.”

“And should I believe your promise?” Attolia found herself genuinely curious to know his answer. His reputation, such as it was, was not one of honesty.

“These are the special fruits of the goddess Poma,” he explained, seemingly unoffended, “and this variety alone is sweet to the taste.”

Eugenides, seeing that she didn’t understand, told the story. 

> Proas, god of green and growing things, married the goddess of bounty, Ianala and their marriage was fruitful. Their immortal children were all great trees and vines and shrubs and every type of flower, down to the smallest violet. Their youngest daughter, Poma, however, had no plant to her name and it was she who tended her father’s sacred garden, where he grew all the fruits of the gods. The most desired fruits were the apples of youth. Many thieves, both mortal and immortal, came to the garden to trick Poma and steal the apples.
> 
> But that is a different story. The one I am telling you is about how Poma fell in love. 
> 
> There was a quince tree in the garden that had grown over the wall. No one ever bothered to steal the quinces because despite their sweet scent, they knew that the fruits were bad for eating, hard and bitter to the taste. But Poma saw beauty in the spindly shape of the tree and the sweet fragrance it released over the garden, and so she did not prune it back when she clipped the other trees.
> 
> Poma had one visitor who was not a thief and that was Hilyros, a wind from the sea on the far side of the mountains. Hilyros blew across the dry plains and rustled the forests and puffed up the slopes of the mountains to where the jagged peaks disappeared into the clouds. Each time he reached the top, he found Poma tending the garden, the perfume of the quince trees all around her.
> 
> Hilyros had never smelled something so appealing. He was tired and begged her for a taste of the fruit, but Poma knew that the quince would be bitter and could give him no joy and refused. Hilyros left the mountain disappointed.
> 
> Sad that she could not give her friend the one thing he had asked for, Poma went to her brother who had dominion over all of the fruits and berries and she asked him to make her a quince that was sweet, that she could give to Hilyros when he visited her lonely mountain.
> 
> At first her brother refused, pointing to the order of natural things. But Poma asked again and he loved his sister so he gave her a single seed and promised that if she cared for it, it would bear a fruit as sweet as honey. Poma carried it back carefully to the garden and planted it on the outside of the walls, right by the entrance. She tended it with love. She watered it and made sure it had sunlight and good soil. When birds came to peck at it and foxes sniffed at the fragile roots, she shooed them away with her own hands and her seed grew, as slowly as these things grow, into a tree.
> 
> Hilyros still blew up the mountain to visit her as his path took him, but he no longer asked about the fruit. He was a wind, which is to say, unaccountable. Sometimes his visits were frequent and at other times, she would go seasons without seeing him, wondering if he would ever return. That year, the tree bore a single fruit and Poma waited as it ripened, hoping that Hilyros would come back before it rotted on the branch or an animal snatched it during the night. As the days passed, it seemed more and more likely that her friend wouldn’t return in time, but still she waited until the last possible day to pick the fruit to eat it herself. 
> 
> Just as she split open the quince, she felt the tendrils of a breeze lifting her hair and she saw that Hilyros had returned. She offered him half of her fruit and showed him the tree by the garden door and said,
> 
> “I planted this tree for love of you, but now as I have cared for it, I love it in its own right. Here is the sweet fruit you desired. I give it to you freely and you may eat it or not eat it, return or not return.”
> 
> Hilyros had not been blowing up the mountain all this time for the fruit. He ate the quince and it was as sweet as she had promised and he vowed to Poma that wherever his path took him, he would always return to her.
> 
> When he left that time, Hilyros took the seeds from the quince and scattered them over the mountains so that they would grow and others would be able to enjoy the fruits. Even now, every so often you will still stumble on one of Poma’s quince trees, gifts to the weary travelers willing to climb the mountains.

“That is why in Eddis we know that these are only quinces that can be eaten plucked from the tree and not cooked,” Eugenides finished, somehow producing a quince that she had not seen him pick.

Attolia had leaned against the crenellated wall of the walkway to listen as he told the story. Eugenides was as good a storyteller as any she had had in her court, animated and engaging. “Thank you,” she said, as he bowed with a flourish. “I had not heard that story before.”

He stepped closer and held out the hand not holding the quince. “May I have that knife in your hair?”

Startled, Attolia carefully pulled it out and handed it to him. He split the quince and offered her half. The scent of the fruit was even stronger when exposed to the air and she breathed it in for a moment without eating. As she hesitated, Eugenides grinned and took a large bite. 

Feeling a little foolish, Attolia took a bite of her own half and sweetness filled her mouth. 

“In Attolia,” she said, finishing her morsel and turning the fruit over in her hand, “there is a tradition where a bride and a bridegroom eat a quince on the day of their wedding, to ensure that their kisses are sweet and their marriage fruitful.”

“In Eddis too.” Eugenides swallowed, the movement drawing Attolia’s attention to the dark column of his throat peeking from beneath his coat. He had joined her at the wall and she found herself suddenly aware of how her arm was now touching his shoulder, barely a brush as they stood together. His eyes stood out for their darkness in his moonlit face as he looked at her, and his expression made her breath come faster. She pushed away from the wall and his gaze stayed with her, head turning. Her heart was suddenly beating in her throat.

Attolia couldn’t explain why she leaned over and pressed her lips to his. She did not believe in his gods or his legends. She had thought herself long past love stories and it was not a quince, sweet or unsweet, that had been on her lips when she kissed her husband on that night so many years ago. 

Eugenides didn’t move and she quickly drew back. The Thief was as still as if she had cast a spell to turn him to stone. His expression might have been amusing, with his mouth fallen into a dark ‘o’ and his eyes as big as staters. But Attolia, stomach lurching as if she had drunk an entire amphora of wine instead of a few watered glasses, could not find the humor. Her heart raced and she was caught in a place between fleeing and stillness, as skittish as a deer facing down the arrow it could not outrun. She did not like the feeling.

No one would believe him if he told them, she told herself. His reputation as a liar was as well established as hers as a cold and heartless fiend.

Oblivious to her spiraling thoughts, Eugenides lifted a hand to his lips, an echo of shock still on his face. Then he reached up to touch her jaw and pull her back down to him. 

He kissed her with eager enthusiasm, turning his face up to her, and warmth spread all through Attolia. She felt his fingers brush the nape of her neck and all the little hairs that had escaped her braids stood up. Accidentally, she scraped her teeth against his lip and when he made a throaty sound and went pliant against her, she did it again. 

When her attendants giggled and spoke of kissing their lovers, they could not have meant this, Attolia thought. The lovers came and went, but surely they would not give them up if their mouths moved as exquisitely as Eugenides’s, clumsy and a little sweet. 

Her neck began to hurt a little from bending over him and she pulled away to look for some way to even their heights. Eugenides was eager to please and he levered himself up onto the wall and sat to put their faces level. Attolia looked with concern at the long drop down the mountain behind him.

“I won’t fall,” he promised her breathily, then pulled her close so that he could lick into her mouth again.

She wasn’t sure how long it had been when she finally broke away to catch her breath. Eugenides’s eyes were closed and the expression on his face was one of such open transcendence that Attolia felt warmth curl throughout her stomach at the sight. She did not know when the last time was that someone had approached her without fear or reserve.

“Did you want to go inside?” she checked, brushing back a long tendril of hair that had escaped his velvet hair tie. Attolia had certainly been missed by now and she suspected that people would be looking for Eugenides as well. Perhaps he had wanted to dance more. Surely there were those in Eddis besides his cousin who appreciated his skill.

“No!” he said, far more loudly than was necessary in the still silence of the night, with Attolia mere inches from him. He leaned in to assure her of it with more kisses, but at the last moment drew back again. “Did  _ you _ want to go back inside?” he asked cautiously. 

“I am sure that our absence has been noticed.” Attolia glanced back towards the faint glow of the torches that led back into the palace. There was no part of her that wanted to return to the throne room instead of staying on the wall and finding out what the line of his jaw felt like under her lips, but she was a queen, not a blushing girl. Attolia did not make decisions for her personal pleasure.

Eugenides followed the line of her gaze and then looked back at her. The tension melted from his shoulders and his expression lost its cautiousness. “Your guard there would certainly prefer it if you returned,” he told her innocently. Attolia looked at Teleus standing at attention far down the walkway, staring stoically at the stone. “I believe he is wishing that sword had been a little more effective.”

“It is not too late to make that happen,” she threatened, feeling her temper rise. She expected him to pull away but instead, Eugenides grinned at her from under his lashes, leaning in still more closely, and Attolia flushed. “Fool,” she told him, harshly. “You are incorrigible.”

“Yes,” he agreed, breath hot against her neck. Attolia shivered. Her duties could wait a little while longer, she decided. She brushed her thumb over the scar on Eugenides’s cheek and leaned in again to meet him.

Their mouths began to wander. Attolia pressed her lips to the soft skin by his ear and received a shiver for it. Eugenides was more expansive, generously scattering kisses like stars over her jaw and throat and exposed neckline. Attolia made a soft noise.

If she had ever felt so weightless before, she could not recall it. The gods themselves might have descended to offer her all the blessings of Anesadora. Somewhere far beyond the shadows of the mountains that surrounded them was her country, her grasping barons and her court of vipers. The king of Sounis, just below her feet in Eddis’s palace, enabled Attolian treason with Sounisian gold, greedy for an advantage in his quest to rule the peninsula. 

And yet, as if Eugenides knew her worries and could relieve them, he took her hand and held it. With her other, Attolia fit her palm to the curve of his face and marveled at how he leaned into her touch.

When their mouths were pleasantly swollen and they had settled into a comfortable silence to breathe and lean against each other, she looked out over him at the mountains silhouetted by the moonlight. It was a beautiful night. Eugenides rested his forehead against her shoulder and she tentatively scratched her fingers through his hair, long since pulled from its braid.

He played with the tie of her sleeve, but looked away. Stray thoughts of her duties and the outside world began to creep into Attolia’s mind once again and she wondered if he was finished with this little adventure, if he wanted to return to his people and his queen and the celebration that he had made possible.

“Take me home with you,” he said, interrupting the turn her mind had taken. 

“Excuse me?” Attolia must have misheard. 

Eugenides pulled back so that he could look at her face, beseeching her. “I can serve you, I can be your Thief, like you wanted before,” he said, rushing.

Attolia sucked in a breath with a hiss and he fell silent. 

“What of—your queen?” she asked, remembering his preference for Eddis. His position in her court, if it had ever been in doubt, was surely official now. “Won’t she miss you?”

“Her throne is secure now and her barons are eating out of her palm again,” he said, and shrugged. “And she won’t miss the trouble I bring to her court.” Eugenides looked down again, a little embarrassed. 

“I think she would,” Attolia told him, thinking of how he had steadied Eddis as she watched the Gift drop into the Sacred Mountain. “And anyway, you are far too young to—” she floundered for a word, unsure what to say. To steal away to kiss in the dead of night? To take as a lover?

“I’m older than you were when you were married,” he pointed out petulantly. Attolia realized with a sharp stab of dissonance that he was right. She wondered what else he knew of her early reign.

“That is—neither here nor there. And—” she added belatedly, “I’m not marrying you.”

“Good,” said Eugenides hotly, “because I don’t want to be king.”

“Good,” Attolia snapped back. “Because I wasn’t offering.”

They glared at each other. As her annoyance faded, she thought about the day’s events and about what it might mean for Eugenides to come to her court. The Thief had proved himself to be brave and clever. He had skillfully defended his queen and secured her throne and Attolia was in sore need of loyal allies. She tried to caution herself against hoping for anything beyond that.

“After the snow melts, you may suggest to your cousin that she sends a delegation for a treaty,” Attolia offered at last. “And if you still wish to—”

“I will,” he interrupted. He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “I will.”

“You may not,” she warned, over the clench of her chest. Her barons usually spent their winters plotting and scheming and it sometimes made for a bloody spring. She remembered how he had looked at her in her fortress and how he had judged her. Attolia was not Eddis and she would never be able to rule like her.

Eugenides lifted his other hand to cup her cheek. “Whatever it is, I can help,” he said earnestly. “I can steal anything.”

Attolia looked down at her hands until she had composed herself. “We will see,” she said, her voice thick.

*

When Attolia said her formal goodbyes to her hosts the next day, The Thief of Eddis stood at his queen’s side. Attolia said all of the proper things to Eddis and didn’t let her eyes fall to Eugenides until the very end, nodding stiffly and pressing her lips together as she met his poorly hidden smile.

“Farewell, Your Majesty.” He bowed, lower than was either proper or prudent.

“Goodbye, Eugenides.” Attolia felt something loosening in her chest as she looked at him, like a flower unfurling or Hope stretching her wings. He was dressed to grab attention in his coat and matching hair ribbon, a vivid crimson figure among the sedately attired Eddisians, and his eyes on her were bright and spoke of promises. “Be blessed in your endeavors.”

**Author's Note:**

> My note at the end of the document for this story was "And then they write nerdy letters about architecture all winter and Helen cuts off Sophos’s hand? 🤔 " Which is not quite what happens next but still makes me laugh too much not to include. ~~Even though Margaux says I can't cut off Sophos's hand~~
> 
> Title is Taylor Swift/Everything Has Changed


End file.
